Wednesday, July 6th

Happy belated 4th of July everyone! This past weekend was full, but, quiet. Everyone behaved themselves and had a good time. Friday afternoon ended up being the start of the monsoons here. We heard from campers that it poured pretty much all day at the Grand Canyon, but, by the time it reached us, all we got was 10 minutes of hard rain and wind, then, it was done.

It's been three weeks since we met our friends, Jack & Jeanne up
at Lake Powell. We left the campground on Monday, right after we got off
work at 3. We decided to turn left and follow Hwy 64 right up to the
Canyon, then, after getting in, taking the road east towards Hwy 89. We
stopped at the Cameron Trading Post to get something to eat. As we
walked into the dining room, there was a couple next to us, who were
eating something that looked good on their plates, which turned out to
be Indian fry bread tacos. Their portions looked huge, so we asked for one and
have it split between us. It was still huge when it came out, we could
have easily eaten half of the half and been full! The front part of the
trading post had lots and lots of Indian jewelry, pottery, blankets,
dream catchers, etc. for the visiting public to buy. This is one place
we'd like to come back to while we're here to eat their wonderful tacos.

As we got back onto the highway, we realized we were on Indian land.
Some of the houses we saw were just crude shacks, but, others looked
well maintained and new. With the hot weather they get in the summer, we
were amazed some had A/C, some didn't. The Navajos get most of their
money from the sheep they raise and that is how they make their
beautiful Navajo blankets. There were numerous places along the way
where the Indians were selling stuff that they had made, if we hadn't
been in such a hurry and the fact that it was getting late, we might
have stopped to see what there was.

After dropping our stuff off at our motel in Page,we drove to the campground where Jack
& Jeanne were staying, which was near the Wahweap Marina with a good view of Lake Powell. We stayed a little while, visiting and playing cards.

Before they got to the lake, they had asked us if we wanted to go with them on a boat tour to Rainbow Bridge National Monument. Since we'd never even been to the lake before, we jumped at the chance, so since we had to get up early the next morning, we made it an early night.

Ron & I got up at 5:30, so we could eat breakfast at Denny's and get to Jack & Jeanne's in time to leave on the boat. It turned out, we got there half an hour before departure and had to wait for the tour guide to come get us, so that was nice. We decided to get on the top deck so we could see where we were going and be able to take good pictures. We left at 7:30 and it was cool enough to almost need light jackets.